This episode was suggested by several listeners, Nina and Bailey on Facebook, Michael via email, and Heather on Instagram.

If you'd like to suggest a topic, you can do so on Facebook and Instagram at Morbid Curiosity Podcast,

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This episode contains discussions about torture, abuse, and enslavement.

If that's not something you want to hear about, this may be a good episode to skip. Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so the mysterious and unsolved.

Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped hundreds of people throughout the ages.

I am one of those people.

My name is Halley, and this is the Morbid Curiosity podcast.

Music If you've ever been to New Orleans or read anything about it, there's a moment in its history that has lived on in infamy since it occurred.

This moment has also spawned numerous legends and ghost stories about the location where it took place and the person behind the dramatic event.

That place is 1140 Royal Street,

and that moment is a raging fire that broke out in the house in 1834 and revealed a horror

kept secret within. The person was Madame Delphine Lollary.

There are many versions of this legend, but the most consistent one goes that the fire broke out in the kitchen.

The Lollary family, who owned the house, escaped to safety, but many neighbors gathered to

try to fight the fire.

When they entered the slave quarters, they discovered a torture chamber,

where seven slaves were suspended in chains

and bore marks of recent whipping,

gouging, stabbing, and other atrocities.

The slaves were so weak

they had to be carried out of the house,

...